Wednesday, February 16, 2011

New live blitz on Chessvideos.tv

http://www.chessvideos.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8274

Yet another Black Queen Blues. 6...Qa5 in the Winawer

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Good interview with Chucky

He just had a fantastic tournament in Gibraltar and he always has those in between every year. He is obviously dripping with talent but sometimes he becomes very inconsistent in between his brilliant performances.

http://www.chessintranslation.com/2011/02/vassily-ivanchuk-i-can-still-become-world-champion/

Thursday, February 3, 2011

A wonderful mating theme from ICC game

My friend and teammate from the Vestmann Islands team was playing a 3-minute game on ICC vs a Grandmaster and finished him off with a mate in 3 in this position.


1.Qf6!! Nxf6
2.Bg7!! Kxg7
3.h8=Q

Aside from being very beautiful and clean, this mating pattern also has a nice aesthetic geometry to it. White makes successive checks on the diagonal squares, f6, g7 and h8 and each time with a different piece! This could possibly be unique but I'll leave that to someone with good searching tools in databases.

More Korchnoi!

Korchnoi had quite a tournament in Gibraltar. After 9 rounds, he was undefeated with 3 wins and 6 draws. He only lost this last round game today against Paco Vallejo(2698) but had a winning move in there had he been lucky.

Had he won I am sure he would have set the bar pretty high for anybody to catch his Tournament Rating Performance at the age of 79! Even with the loss he might still have the best mark if this is his best TRP since turning 79.

Here is the game and then some stories after it ;-)



In the 9th round, Korchnoi beat A.Wohl with the white pieces and in a King's Indian. After beating him, Korchnoi says in German (He had lived in Swiss for many years so he can manage with German) something like: "Es gibt Leute gegen die man nich Konigsindisch spielen können" (his german is not perfect and mine is pathetic so apologies to my German audience)....Anyway. They part and just moments later while outside, Korchnoi walks up to him and now says in English "You know, there are some people against which you just can't play the King's Indian!". Wohl anwers "I know....I understood when you said it in German". To which Korchnoi replied "I just wanted to make that clear!!"

There is only one Korchnoi! It's like childish arrogange and the feeling I get it's not meant to be hurtful, it's just the way he is.

Once playing in Sweden around 1990. My current team captain observed this. He was playing against Swedish IM Ari Ziegler. Ziegler had white and got some advantage out of the opening so he offered the great warrior a draw. Victor the Terrible answered by throwing his hands in the air.....and screaming "HE OFFERED ME A DRAW" ....followed by some big laughs.  Naturally Ziegler was so distraught after this that he lost his way and lost the game.

Once he played here in Iceland against Ivan Sokolov. This is like 8 years ago. The position is becoming drawish and instead of offering a draw Korchnoi says "Ok, I GIVE you a draw"....the exchange of words and expressions they had on the stage after that was hilarious, too bad I can't rememeber any of it. I must ask Ivan over a bottle of red win in Reykjavik Open 2011. I do remember though that Victor called Ivan a "Coffeehouse player"!!